by Dan Rix
He shook his head. “Some kind of creature that feeds off dead reflections. It’s been trying to get into the source for ages.”
“By hitching a ride inside a carrier’s body?”
“Yeah. That was its goal with Amy.”
***
Though we said nothing about it to each other, Damian and I both knew it was our incompetence that had killed Amy. If we hadn’t failed our mission in the first place, she wouldn’t have had to crossover.
Her blood was on our hands.
I helped Damian to the couch downstairs and surveyed his blood stained right arm.
“They put rods in the bone. It’s just the stitches tearing,” he said.
I stared at him, finally letting my relief surface, bittersweet as it was. He was alive, safe, and right then that one comfort melted away my tension. “Stop almost dying on me,” I said.
He lifted the hem of his shirt and rubbed the sweat off his face—I would have licked it off him if he’d asked me to—before he lifted his gaze to mine. “Don’t ever risk your life for me again.”
“I don’t need your permission,” I said.
“Nothing’s going to keep me alive, Blaire,” he said. “Not even you. You saw what happened to Amy.”
Again, the strange message she left for me flashed through my mind, soaking me with another wave of chills. I refused to avert my eyes. “Why didn’t you tell me the truth?” I said. “About crossover sickness. Why didn’t you tell me there was something else alive down there?”
“Because you’re not at risk,” he said. “They can’t get into your body.”
“Can they get into yours?” I asked.
“Not yet.”
“But they will?”
“Eventually.”
“Then stop,” I said. “Stop crossing over.”
He smirked. “You might as well tell me to stop breathing. It can’t be done.”
“Charles stopped,” I said.
Damian cocked an eyebrow. “Are you sure about that, Blaire?”
“He can’t. He’s expired.”
“He invented expired,” he said, his eyes black pits. “No one stops, Blaire. We all go on like this pretending we’ve made it safe, pretending there’s no risk because we follow protocol—and then we break the rules behind each other’s backs. But one by one, it gets us. We come home one day and there’s not enough of us left inside our own bodies. Something else moves in.”
I stared at him. “Is that how it happened with my dad?”
Damian nodded. “He went for the wires on the ultrasonic speaker. Like Amy. It took four tranquilizers to bring him down. We didn’t lose him in the line of duty, Blaire. We lost him to crossover sickness. We did what we would have done to anybody—what you and Charles are going to eventually do to me when it gets inside my body—we banished him to a reflection.”
Chapter 20
A number of increasingly worried text messages and voicemails from Josh informed me that prom was in a week, we were going out to dinner and sharing a limo with his friends, and that his dad would be providing alcohol for a preparty at his house.
I deleted the messages and collapsed on my bed, pressure throbbing in my sinuses. They had abandoned my father in a reflection, just like they abandoned Amy.
They orphaned him . . . deliberately.
Which meant he could still be alive.
Thanks to Charles’s analogy, though, my hopes imploded before I completed the thought; my rope to him had been severed. There was no way to reach him.
Besides, even if he was still alive in a parallel universe, he had crossover sickness. Something else lived in him now, and I would no longer recognize him as my father.
Although the explanation hurt, it also lifted a weight off my chest. Only now could I truly see it; at some point during the past five weeks, I had stopped grieving for my father. He was gone, and I could move on. In any case, I knew the truth. I sighed and rolled over, pressing my face into my pillow.
Or did I?
Blaire, you are the one thing that doesn’t belong. A message left for me . . . by what, exactly, I couldn’t say.
The same thing my father had said five weeks ago.
***
Amy’s absence the following week weighed down the already humid office air and thickened the silence between the three of us who remained. Preoccupied with everything that had happened, I realized I had completely forgotten about my dad’s diary—it hardly mattered now that I knew the truth. I’d pick it up over the weekend.
By Friday, I made up my mind to quit ISDI, fed up with crossover and having learned what really happened to my father—but a loud knock caught me on my way up the stairs.
I glanced back to see a man in creased khakis and a button down shirt, the sleeves rolled to the middle of his massive forearms. Detective Joe Paretti. He stepped inside the office and scanned the interior until his gaze narrowed on me.
“Blaire Adams,” he said. “No surprises there.”
“No uniform?” I said.
“Promotion. Where’s your boss?”
Damian called from his couch, “Charles, someone here to see you.”
A minute later, Charles emerged from the stairs, wiping at the redness around his eyes. “How can I help you . . .” He raised his eyebrows. “Mister—?”
“Surely you remember. Detective Paretti,” said Joe, flashing his badge and watching Charles carefully. “I’m looking for your daughter, Amy. I’ve been told she works here?”
“That’s correct,” said Charles. He scrunched up his eyebrows. “She’s not in trouble, is she?”
Joe cocked his head to the side, studying Charles from a different angle. “We think she’s missing, actually. Her vehicle’s been impounded, and a few friends of hers just reported they haven’t been able to reach her—or you, for that matter.”
Charles said nothing. It was then I noticed Amy’s purse tucked under her desk, just out of view of Joe. If he came any closer—
Joe stepped farther into the office. Again he scanned the rows of empty desks piled with rolls of architects plans and stuffed manila folders, but he didn’t look down. “Refresh my memory, Donovan. What do you do here?”
“High-end commercial and institutional interior design,” said Charles.
“Mm-hm. When was the last time you saw your daughter?” Joe’s gaze roved over Damian—who stared back calmly—and briefly flicked to his wrist brace.
I could see Charles flexing his jaw in concentration, calculating something. “Do I need to call my lawyer about this?”
He suspected, like I did, that Joe was trying to catch us in a lie; he knew something we didn’t.
“Quite possibly, Mister Donovan. Quite possibly.” Joe raised his eyes to the stairs behind him. “Mind if I peek around upstairs?”
“You’ll need a warrant for that.”
“Alright, we’ll do this dance again,” said Joe. “This time it won’t be so easy to get off. This is the second employee you’ve lost.”
“And the second time you’ve suspected an innocent man.”
“No, not innocent,” said Joe, “Not proven guilty does not mean innocent.” His eyes fell to the purse tucked behind Amy’s desk, which he lifted off the floor by its long strap. “Her purse, I assume?”
“I said you need a warrant,” growled Charles.
“Not for evidence found in plain view during a lawful observation,” said Joe.
“Wait—” I blurted, “you can’t take my purse.”
Joe’s eyes flashed in my direction. “It’s yours?”
“Duh,” I said. “I am the only girl in the office.”
“Whether that’s true remains to be seen,” he said, but he dropped the purse. He no
dded to Damian. “Blaire, you and your friend here don’t go too far. We might need you for questioning down at the station.” He gave the office a final penetrating scan before extricating himself from the building.
As soon as he was gone, Damian and Charles rushed to the door and peered intently across the street. I stood behind them, craning to see over their broad shoulders.
“There,” said Damian, pointing. “Under the awning.”
“How did we miss that?” said Charles.
“Miss what?” I said.
“A surveillance camera,” said Damian, receding into the office, “meaning they saw her walk in last week, but never saw her walk out.”
Charles nodded. “Paretti won’t bother with a search warrant,” he said. “He’s planning a hostage rescue . . . they think she’s still inside.”
***
“We have to close up shop,” said Charles, once we’d gathered in his office, “shut down ISDI . . . lay low for a while. We’ll pack up tonight and leave tomorrow morning.”
My jaw fell open. “But this is my home.”
“This isn’t a reflection, Blaire. They have evidence. Enough to incriminate all of us this time.”
“Not Blaire,” said Damian. “She’s a minor; let her stay. She can claim duress.”
“I filed for emancipation with the state,” I said. “I think that means I can be tried as an adult.”
“Depends on the judge,” said Charles, “but it’s possible we’ll all be found accomplices to murder.”
The reality of it finally hit me, how deep I had gotten myself. And I’d been about to quit five minutes earlier. “What about the artifact?” I said. “After all this work, you’re just going to let it slip through your fingers?”
“We don’t have a choice, Blaire.”
“We’ll run another mission,” I said. “We’ll go all the way to the chamber.”
Charles shook his head. “Since we still don’t have that footage, you’d be going in blind. Damian’s injured, and we don’t have nearly enough time to run preliminaries on another mission—let alone one to actually recover the artifact. It’s not an option.”
Suddenly, the prospect of abandoning the artifact filled me with dread. It was the last bastion of truth, the one thing I needed in order to know my place in the world, where I had come from . . . the source of my DNA.
“I’ll go alone,” I said. “Tonight.”
“She’s right,” said Damian, standing up beside me. “We can’t give up now. I’ll go with her.”
“Damian, you’re recovering from a replanted right hand and a car crash.”
“It’s now or never,” he said. “It’ll be years before you’re in position to make another attempt.”
“Damian. You’re hurt,” he said. His eyes flicked to me. “And you’re not ready.”
“She’s been training harder than any of us,” said Damian. “From the beginning, her judgment’s been infallible. You know that.”
I gaped at Damian, my jaw slack in disbelief. Before today, he had never admitted I had so much as tied my shoes correctly.
“You’re out of your mind,” said Charles.
“Isn’t that why you hired us?” I said.
“I hired you because you can crossover,” said Charles.
“It’s now or never,” said Damian.
Charles massaged his chin and inspected us from head to foot, concentration knotting his eyebrows, apparently considering Damian’s words.
Finally, he released his breath in a hiss. “We pack up tomorrow morning, whether or not we get it. I want full preliminaries from each of you by midnight. After that, go home and get whatever sleep you can. Meet me back here at three AM . . . and Blaire—” his eyes targeted me, “find us another way into that goddamn artifact chamber. You’ll never get there if you go through the front door.”
***
So we would go through the back door.
According to the site plan, a maintenance tunnel branched due west off the artifact chamber, climbed at a three degree angle for 2,600 feet, and exited at the foot of the cliffs beneath the Torrey Pines Golf Course. In case of a radiation or biohazard incident, the U.S. Army could pump seawater down the tunnel and flood the chamber.
I hadn’t considered it before since it doubled the distance we had to cover, but as Charles suggested, we didn’t have enough information to fake our way through the front door. And another thing we hadn’t considered: the dimensions of the tunnel just accommodated a Ford Mustang GT.
After returning home later that night per Charles’s instructions, I mulled over the details in bed and sank into an anxious sleep.
Around two in the morning, the sound of my front door opening and closing jolted me awake. I could tell I had just drifted off; my mind was still wired. I sat up in bed, straining to hear past my thudding heart.
Then I heard them. Footsteps, creaking down the hallway toward my bedroom. My skin broke out with sweat.
A scrape just outside my door. I held my breath, frozen. Then a figure lunged inside, groped the wall for the light switch, and flooded my bedroom with hot white light.
I clutched the sheet to my chest and scrambled backwards, stared at the invader, my blood chilling to ice—Charles.
“Shh,” he said, pressing a finger to his lips. “I’m just looking for your dad’s diary.”
“Get out, now.” My voice came out a whimper. Naked, with only a thin sheet covering my body, I couldn’t remember a time I’d felt more vulnerable.
His eyes settled on my journal, perched on my bedside table, which he grabbed and flipped through. “This is just a reflection, Blaire. Just a reflection . . .” He paused halfway through the journal and laughed. “You hide your feelings for Damian pretty well.”
“That’s mine. Give it back.”
“I’m not here for your secrets,” he said, tossing it into my lap. “I’m here for your father’s.” He withdrew a gun from his pants, carefully screwed on a silencer, and leveled the barrel at my stomach.
“Stop it,” I whispered, choking on my own fear. “Charles . . . stop it.” I struggling to back up even more, but I was pinned by the backrest. “This isn’t funny.”
“Trust me, you’re fast asleep in the source.”
“No, I’m not!” I screamed. “I’m right here—”
The gun exploded like a firecracker, hardly silenced, and the bullet tore into my abdomen, impacting me like a fist and jerking my body. I blinked away the haze, stared at the red pooling in my hands, soaking the sheet. My lower back felt tingly, almost sore . . . the exit hole. The bullet had gone right through me. The rush of adrenaline numbed everything, made me dizzy, and I slumped to the side.
I woke up clutching my abs, this time to an empty, dark room. I swallowed a mouthful of gummy mucous and probed my stomach, but the skin around my belly button felt smooth. No wound.
My eyes darted through the shadows. No Charles, either. Gradually, the fear dissipated, replaced with relief, and I let myself fall back into my pillows. Just a bad dream.
No—my eyelids sprang open—not a bad dream. Overlap.
***
At 3:05, Charles arrived at ISDI through the garage entrance, which we had agreed was safer—although all the entrances were likely under surveillance. He carried a yellow equipment case.
“You’re late,” said Damian. “What’s that?”
“What . . . this?” Charles lifted the yellow case and appeared to consider his answer. “Drills. I’m taking the place apart.”
“Don’t touch room A,” said Damian.
“Of course not,” said Charles.
I watched him carefully. As far as I knew, neither one of us had told him I overlapped. Was that why he was late?
Charl
es noticed me watching him and returned the look with a raised eyebrow. I broke away. He was too good an actor. Besides, it would have to wait. We were out of time.
“One last thing,” said Damian. “Have you considered the possibility that a reflection of the artifact will be just that . . . a reflection? We might need to collect it in the source.”
“That would be ironic, wouldn’t it?” He smiled, and the corner of his eye twitched.
***
“This doesn’t feel right,” said Damian as we climbed into his Mustang in the reflection. “I think he’s hiding something.”
“Does he know I overlap?” I said.
“Not unless you told him.”
I clipped in my seatbelt. “Because I think he crossed over tonight to get my dad’s diary.”
Damian nodded, his jaw rock hard. “We mentioned your overlap at the diner a few weeks ago, but I think he was too focused on disciplining you. He took a big risk. What’s in the diary?”
“No one let me read it.”
In his left hand, Damian took hold of the stick. He rested his right on the steering wheel and eased his fingers around the molded plastic. The effort whitened his knuckles.
“How does it feel?”
“Feels good.” He gave the engine a gentle rev and rolled through the alley, stopped at the driveway to look both ways, and pulled into the street. He edged up to the speed limit. This time he wasn’t taking any chances.
Two pinpricks of light glowed up ahead.
“Car. End of the block,” I said.
He tensed. “I see it.”
The car passed. I swiveled to get a look at the vehicle. “It’s a van. Unmarked.”
“Nothing to worry about,” he said.
I was about to face forward again when the van’s break lights came on. “Hang on. It’s pulling over.”
“Where?”
“In front of ISDI.”
Damian’s dark eyes fixed on the rearview, and he slowed to a crawl. “If this is about to get fucked up, I’d rather just start the mission over. Let’s go back.”
